Nigerian lawyers to earn over N6 billion from Sani Abacha loot

Nigerian lawyers freshly engaged by the federal government to “help” with the repatriation of $321 million stolen by Sani Abacha, former military ruler, will be paid $17 million (over N6 billion) for their services.

This amount is nearly thrice more than what was already paid to Swiss lawyer, Enrico Monfrini, for the same job which he was yet to complete before Nigeria mysteriously decided to engage the services of another set of lawyers.

Nigeria’s attorney-general, Abubakar Malami, suddenly appointed Oladipo Okpeseyi, a senior advocate, and Temitope Isaac Adebayo, in 2016 apparently to duplicate the job of the Swiss lawyer.

Incidentally, Okpeseyi and Adebayo were lawyers to the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the legacy party of President Muhammadu Buhari. Malami was legal adviser to the party.

“We understand the new lawyers are going to be paid $17 million but we are monitoring the situation closely,” an official of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) told TheCable.

“If a case of duplication is established, there will be consequences. This government takes the anti-graft war as a priority, as you well know, and this particular transaction is of interest to us.”

Monfrini was initially engaged by the Nigerian government in 2000 and has worked in the recoveries since then.

The federal government had, between 2013 and 2014, used the services of the Swiss lawyer to recover the funds in Luxembourg.

The monies were then domiciled with the attorney-general of Switzerland, awaiting onward transfer to Nigeria under a strict agreement to avoid “misappropriation” as was the allegation about previous recoveries.

In documents seen by Newsmen, the Swiss lawyer was given briefs and payment terms to cover the entire recovery process up to the return of the monies to Nigeria.

Under the agreement, Nigeria undertook to pay 4% of the recovered Luxemburg assets as professional fees and expenses to Monfrini, in addition to roughly $6.8 million in fees for the $250 million Liechtenstein recoveries.

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7 Comments

I believe that it is only when it is proven that appointed Nigerian lawyers didn’t add any value to the recovery efforts for the $321m that we will question the propriety or otherwise of whatever amount that is being proposed to pay them and until then all these are still in the realm of speculations!